Lady Canes open PBC play with road win

AIKEN, S.C. - Georgia Southwestern won its biggest game since
joining the Peach Belt when the Lady Hurricanes won at USC Aiken
last season.

They did it again on Monday.

Brittany Reynolds delivered big shot after big shot in scoring a
game-high 17 points, and Whitley Wiltz scored 16 as GSW opened
conference play by beating the Lady Pacers, 62-57.

"It's such a huge win on many levels," said coach Kelly Britsky.
"Anytime you get a win on the other side of the conference,
especially a quality team as Aiken, hopefully it will come back
later in the season and be a big point in our direction."

Reynolds put GSW up for good at 13-12 with 5:55 left in the
first half, and her 3-pointer at the buzzer gave the Lady
Hurricanes a 25-15 lead at the half.

GSW's biggest lead came at 46-30 with eight minutes left on
another Reynolds 3-pointer. Britsky said Reynolds and Wiltz carried
the team.

"They were our tandem pair last night," she said. "Whitley
really stepped it up. We count on her to guard the best player on
the the other team, and a lot of times she gets caught up on the
defensive effort and don't score a lot. She was able to find a seam
in the defense and score some points. A lot of kids did good things
that didn't show up on the stats."

GSW (6-5, 1-0 PBC) was 6-of-12 behind the arc and shot 42
percent for the game. It was out-rebounded 45-27, but it made up
for it by holding Aiken to 34 percent while forcing 24 turnovers.

"They were one of the best rebounding teams I've found in a
couple of years," said Britsky. "One thing we went into the game
trying to do was limit Aiken to 50 shots. They have such good
shooters, and we knew they couldn't get many looks. They had 15 in
the first half and finished with 50. I think that was the
difference - them not getting a lot of looks at the goal."

GSW led 59-48 with 1:08 remaining when Aiken finished with a 9-3
run. Back-to-back threes from Triahna Harris and Nakia Pinkney
brought Aiken to within 60-57 with 19 seconds left.

"It was a little out of control the last two minutes," said
Britsky. "They made a roaring comeback to put themselves back in
the game. It basically came down to us getting the ball in bounds
and getting fouled."

Catherine Cain led Aiken (5-6, 0-2) with 15 points, and Pinkney
had 10.